Thursday, February 17, 2011

Painting Your Friends

One of the picture books that made it to many "Best Of" lists last year was Art & Max by David Wiesner. Z got a copy for Christmas and has had a great time exploring this story of friendship and art.

Little lizard Max interrupts the sizeable Arthur while he is painting a picture of a friend. Max insists that he is also an artist and yet he can't decide what to paint. Art suggests "Well ... you could paint me." Max takes that a bit too literally and starts splattering Art with all different colors of paint. Art is less than pleased by this and he literally bursts from frustration -- his skin flies right off his body and he becomes a wispy figure of rainbow colors. When the colors start blowing and washing away, the lines come loose and Art loses his substance, Max has to recreate him. Arthur ends up different than he was originally but he's happy with the change.

While I've heard that younger kids have been a bit scared and worried while reading this book, Z loved it. The simple words and bright colors excited him and got him thinking about art. He even decided to write up his own version of the story. Enjoy!